Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva - Texts & Contexts

Texts & Contexts

Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva

Translated by Ingrid Veiga

Texts & Contexts

Written By Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva

Copyright 2019 Antonio Carlos Mongiardim Gomes Saraiva

All rights reserved

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Translated by Ingrid Veiga

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Presentation

T exts & Contexts is a compilation of some writings of the author produced between 2012 and 2018. The genres oscillate from chronicles to articles and prose poetry. They present ordinary traces derived from both style and observation of daily life facts and situations.

The Author

M antena, July 2018 .

TEXTS & CONTEXTS

mongiardimsaraiva

VISIT TO LISBON

I came back to Lisbon 15 years later. The first feeling was that of recognition of a city, heritage of my recent memory, with the same color, smell, profile and people who walked in a rush with those somewhat morose looks on their faces. After all, I had gotten used to a way more cheerful and loose profile, characteristic of the tropical climates. That's Brazil and the city I live in now. The old Lisbon was still the one who breathes history to me, full of splendid monuments and loads of poetics alongside Tejo. Of an unique beauty.

As I arrived, my will to wander around Lisbon was tremendous. Still tired from the trip, I couldn't resist the appeal of walking through the old Baixa Pombalina. Chiado, Rua Augusta, Terreiro do Pao and Rossio, just as I used to on the good old days. It was almost Christmas and the stores were simmering in colors and full of people. A great number of tourists savoring the relics of our land . The temptation of the cakes served on the old pastries of Lisbon and the typical restaurants with mouth-watering medieval delicacies. My tiredness had abandoned me entirely. My senses were now overwhelmed by a familiar sweet scent as hadnt happened in a long time. My city had embraced me back as a son who comes back home after a long trip. Without questioning. With arms wide open in a gesture filled with comfort and affection I wont forget anytime soon. A lot had changed without a doubt; a whole heap of new constructions and just as much demolished. Walking by these streets and avenues was to me like savoring an old familiar fruit that had matured several times but never really lost its essence. I found some almost chocking changes: stores which were now closed, gone restaurants, Rossios Square taken by a refugees population. The once noble area of the high part of town was now almost abandoned and in clear downfall. Who does not remind of the famous Roma Avenues buildings now overtaken by the population with lower economical incomes. I also enjoyed the wonderfulness created by Estao Oriente alongside the Tejo, with its rich residential and entertainment infrastructures. The impression I was left with was that of a Lisbon in deep transformation but remaining all its charm and glamour.

To me, this was without a doubt, the most valuable and waited Christmas gift that I had gotten in the last years. I will remember it for a long time, longing to live many more Christmas like that one.

MILITARY SCHOOL

The year was 1968. I had just lost my father, an officer of the Portuguese army. I was taking admission exams for the Military School, an institution solely reserved for the soldiers sons and famous for housing venerable and distinguished names. At the age of 10 I barely knew about these things. The challenge was right there in front of me, as raw as it could be, and I neither had a choice nor was asked the reason behind those purposes. I heard the Institution was primeval and had the best conditions that a child could be given to be educated for life. Therefore, I faced this choice as a needed and voluntary act once this opportunity was valuable and desirable.

I was given a uniform and a gun which I was supposed to learn how to respect and handle. I was also assigned to a number: 110. From that moment on I should always answer by it, as a way of identifying with myself and the system to which I now belonged. It was a new life in an internship regime, inside a quarter they called school. The rituals were very similar to those that take place in real military quarters with the aggravation factor that this time the soldiers had the ages of a child and were monitored by other children a little older than them, called the graduates. These were the students in their last years. They were authorized and instructed to preserve all the rules followed by the School since its foundation. They could manage punishments and penalties whenever they assumed the standards of conduct had been violated or decried. Above them there was a group of officers who managed the interests of the Institution but had no active role on the daily life of the students. Our journey started early in the morning with the dawn (and the horne) and ended with a curfew followed by silence. During the activities wed always walk in formation, as soldiers. In formation we headed to the lunchroom to eat... in formation we left it... we went to classes... came back... sometimes we even headed in formation to our bathhouse to shower. It was hard but our skins started to thicken, year after year. It allowed us to partially relieve this heavy and responsible day-to-day that in such an early age became part of our lives. A great number of incredible stories took place during this time as you can imagine.

Well, this was the heavy and hard side. The other side of this story is that we were part of an institution of magnitude which had an overly efficient structure destined to schooling. We had plain space for our activities, great laboratories, rooms, courts, pavilions, gymnasiums, fields for different sports modalities, equitation, fencing, entertainment rooms, swimming pools, movie theaters, etc, etc. And all that secured by the best crew of teachers and methodologies. Theres no doubt that those were tough and demanding times. But the worst was still to come and we, children, could never know that. Life is hard. For everyone.

We learnt important values as friendship and the will to win. Today, many years after leaving the Military School, I have, besides everything, a weird feeling of accomplished duty, associated to a deep reminiscence that makes me recall friendships and highlight amazing moments I lived there. I recognize a lot of precious values learnt that I will keep with me forever. For all that, I think it was worth it after all. Zacatrs!!!

THE NEIGHBORS

I live in a traditional-inhabited-by-middle-class building of my city. There are eleven floors with four apartments each, which equals a total of 44 residents (families), half of it composed by elderly people who became widow(er)s and embraced the edifice as their forever home. Talking about neighbors is unavoidable when we live in a building. They become a part of our routine, even if we want to forget about their existence sometimes. The biggest part of them is irrelevant and we pass through them with simple good morning or good afternoon greetings and thats all. They follow this protocol promptly. There are others who are not able to settle with just a polite greeting and express a desire to show they are there for better or for worst. Those are the people I am going to tell you about.